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August 29th, 2022

29/8/2022

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The flats have been shortlisted in the 2022 Here Awards.
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Dorset Street Flats
Young Architects
Ōtautahi Christchurch
Apartment or Townhouse; Reuse and Renovation
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Sir Miles Warren’s groundbreaking “bachelor flats” were almost destroyed by the Canterbury earthquakes. The restoration has involved painstaking work to rescue, strengthen and update, while making them significantly more comfortable to live in.
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August 27th, 2022

27/8/2022

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Life story: Pioneering Christchurch architect Sir Miles Warren
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Sir Miles Warren at his Governors Bay property, Ōhinetahi, in 2012 after he gifted the property to the public of New Zealand. (Dean Kozanic / Stuff)
​OBITUARY: When architect Sir Miles Warren learned that much of his life’s work had been destroyed after the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, tears came to his eyes.

His friend, fellow architect Barry Dacombe, had been inside the Christchurch city centre red zone and seen the destruction. He told Warren about the fate of the many buildings he had designed for his hometown.

“You could see the tears welling in his eyes. It was tough,’’ Dacombe said.

It must have been a particularly painful moment for a man who had dedicated his life to architecture, designing striking brutalist buildings across New Zealand and the world from the 1950s onwards. His buildings were so ubiquitous in his home town that the style of brutalist architecture he developed was simply known as the “Christchurch School”.

After the earthquakes, many of these buildings were turned to dust in a matter of months.

But there were many heroic and groundbreaking survivors from the quakes, including College House, Harewood Crematorium, the practice office in Cambridge Tce, and the Christchurch Town Hall, a masterpiece of his career that he personally fought to save from demolition after the earthquakes.

Beyond Christchurch, there were the Civic Offices in Rotorua, Television New Zealand Network Centre in Auckland and the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington, along with projects in Washington DC, New Delhi and New York.

It was a built legacy forged by devoting almost every waking moment to architecture.

Warren, who died earlier this month at the age of 93, harnessed his intuitive design flair with his business savvy and sparkling charm to build an empire. He was always chasing what he called “the main chance” – the big commissions that allowed him to redefine post-war architecture.
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The Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington was another Warren and Mahoney classic. (Supplied)
​This drive and devotion came at a cost. His relatives were proud of his achievement but remember him missing family occasions and work colleagues recall his explosive temper as he drove the practice to excellence.

But Warren would leave a powerful legacy beyond his built work. His designs would transform the face of New Zealand architecture and change the way the country thought about and experienced their built environment.

His public generosity would also leave a legacy. A trust he established In 2006 has given $2 million towards architecture education, while in 2012 he gifted his heritage home and garden outside Christchurch to the nation. He also helped protect many heritage buildings in Christchurch, including rescuing the Isaac Theatre Royal from dereliction in the 1980s.

Warren was born in Christchurch in 1929 and started working at the office of architect Cecil Wood when he was 16. He moved to England in 1953 and worked at the London County Council, where he witnessed the birth of brutalist architecture.
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Warren, left, and Maurice Mahoney in March 1960, a few years after founding their partnership. (Staff Photographer / Stuff)
​After returning to New Zealand, he established a business partnership with Maurice Mahoney in 1958 when they were both in their 20s. The practice they formed together, Warren and Mahoney, would dominate New Zealand architecture for the next 60 years.

Warren said the partnership worked “because each of us supplied what the other lacked”. Mahoney’s daughter, Jane Mahoney, said in 2018 that the pair were “chalk and cheese”.

Warren was “the ideas man and the big-picture vision”, while Mahoney was “working through the details and turning something into a reality”.

A small block of flats designed by Warren on Dorset St in Christchurch in 1956 was an early declaration of intent from an architect who once famously declared that he had never met a straight line he didn't like.
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The Dorset St Flats, seen here in 2010, have since been restored. (Stacy Squire / Stuff)
​In his eulogy at Warren’s funeral, Dacombe said the building’s elegant design and use of concrete blocks expressed the “essence of new brutalism” through the “exploitation and celebration of the truth of raw materials”.

He said the flats were branded by tour bus drivers as “the ugliest buildings in Christchurch”, but the accolade was “the best advert ever for a break-through young architect to get noticed”.

They were the first of many groundbreaking homes designed by Warren, including the famed Ballantynes’ house and his own parents home on Queens Ave, but he was not content to remain in the domestic realm.

Dacombe said Warren “always had a good eye for what he called the ‘main chance’”.
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Ballantyne House in Christchurch was designed in 1959 by Sir Miles Warren for the Ballantyne family that ran the Christchurch department store of the same name. (Supplied)
​One of these “main chances” was a competition Warren and Mahoney won in 1965 to design the Christchurch Town Hall. The brutalist cultural complex on the banks of the Avon River, completed in 1972, was perhaps the firm’s crowning achievement. It was celebrated for the groundbreaking acoustics and intimate sightlines in the main auditorium.

Famed conductor Leonard Bernstein performed at the Town Hall in 1974 and was full of praise.

“I’m crazy about it – very envious, I wish we had something like it in New York,” he told The Press.

“I was very impressed by that combination of vastness and intimacy that the architects have somehow achieved in the hall itself.”
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The Christchurch Town Hall was heralded for its striking brutalism and groundbreaking acoustics. (Mannering and Associates Ltd. / Stuff)
​But success did not come easy. Dacombe, who worked at Warren and Mahoney for 40 years from the 1960s, remembers Warren driving his employees hard.

“Working with Miles was an incredibly rich experience full of vicissitudes as Miles’ moods moved from the excitement of challenging commissions to, at times, the lows of missing out on them,’’ Dacombe said in his eulogy.

“His moods could certainly be challenging as he raged around the studio draughting room, berating individuals for not meeting the high standards he had set. No one was spared.

“[But,] no sooner had the outburst occurred, it was over, and Miles would return to his chatty pleasant self.”

And the success was often at the expense of other aspects of his life. His niece, Sarah Smith, said Warren once missed the christening of his goddaughter because he was working in the office on a Sunday.

“We all knew he was very much a part of our small family, but we all knew that his heart and his life and everything was involved in his work and his architecture.

“He didn’t always make family gatherings, but we were all very proud of what he did.”

He found respite restoring his historic homestead, Ohinetai, above Governors Bay at the head of Lyttelton Harbour.

Warren purchased the dilapidated property in 1976 with his sister Pauline and her husband John Trengrove. They set to restoring the home and creating an ornamental garden in the grounds.
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Warren in the grounds of Ohinetahi in 2015. (David Walker / Stuff)
​“It was very relaxing, the physical process,’’ Warren said in 2012.

“We were amateurs practising an art rather than having to be professional architects. We didn't have a client and we could do what we damn well liked and make our own mistakes.”

The couple moved out in the 1980s and Warren purchased their share. Warren had hoped to remain at the home until his death.

“I will live here as long as I can, but at some stage I might be known as that grumpy old bastard on the first floor.”
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Warren helps cut the ribbon at the reopening of the Christchurch Town Hall in 2019, (John Kirk-Anderson / Stuff)
​He retired from his practice in 1995 but remained an active advocate for architecture. He spoke in favour of a new building in Christchurch’s Arts Centre, waded into the row over the future of the earthquake-damaged Christ Church Cathedral and successfully campaigned to rescue the Town Hall from demolition after the earthquakes.

Warren delighted in the restoration of the Town Hall and cut the ribbon when it reopened in 2019.

He left Ohinetahi just after his 90th birthday in 2017 and moved into a retirement village as he became too frail to get about the large house.

But Smith said he still had a keen interest in the rebuild of central Christchurch, getting updates from visitors on the restoration of the Christ Church Cathedral and new buildings like Ravenscar House.
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Warren has died on August 9 at the age of 93. (David Walker / Stuff)
In her eulogy, she summarised her uncle’s life.

“Miles was described by my father as a difficult man. He was very much his own person and absolutely dedicated to the art of architecture and the arts in general.

“He has left an amazing legacy in his buildings, his house and garden, and the numerous substantial gifts he has made to both the arts and architecture and the preservation of heritage buildings.

“He is a true New Zealand icon. We as a family dearly loved him and he will be greatly missed by us all.”


Charlie Gates, THE PRESS, 27 August 2022
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August 10th, 2022

10/8/2022

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​Sir Miles Warren

A mighty tōtara has fallen. It is with great sadness that Te Kāhui Whaihanga advises that Sir Miles Warren, one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most influential and leading architects, has passed away (10 May 1929 – 9 August 2022). He was 93.

Sir Miles’s career spanned decades and will leave a lasting impact on architecture in New Zealand for centuries to come.

“This is an enormous loss of a great architect for New Zealand and the profession. His generosity and support of the profession has been immeasurable,” says Te Kāhui Whaihanga President Judith Taylor.

“I know there will be great sadness across the profession on this news. Our thoughts are with the Warren family, friends and the profession.”

Te Kāhui Whaihanga has been advised the funeral will be held at Christ's College Chapel, Christchurch, on Thursday August 18 at 2.00pm.

An outstanding legacy

Born in Christchurch in 1929, Sir Miles Warren began his working life at the age of 16 in the office of Cecil Wood. After initially studying architecture via correspondence at the Christchurch Atelier, he moved to Auckland to complete his studies, then travelled to England in 1953. There he worked with the London County Council and was, in his own words, "extraordinarily fortunate to be sitting right in the middle of the birth of Brutalism". Influenced by his first-hand experience of the work of Scandinavian architects such as Finn Juhl, Sir Miles returned to New Zealand "brimful of ideas" and began designing some of his most iconic buildings.

Sir Miles started his design practice in 1955, beginning with the design of two houses in Timaru in that year. In 1956 he designed the Dorset Street flats in Christchurch, and in 1958 he began a long and successful partnership with Maurice Mahoney, winning a large contract to build the Dental Training School. Their practice became known as Warren and Mahoney and the pair's work is regarded as the birth of the 'Christchurch School' of architecture, which melded the solidity of New Brutalism with the lightweight vernacular of the Group Architects.

During the next decade, the practice created buildings such as Christchurch College (now College House), the Harewood Crematorium (awarded an NZIA Gold Medal in 1964), the office and flat at 65 Cambridge Terrace, the Wool Exchange, the Chapman block at Christ's College and the Canterbury Students Union, all widely regarded as part of the nation's architectural heritage. But it was winning the high-profile competition for the Christchurch Town Hall (1966-72) that cemented their position among New Zealand's premier firms.

Commissions in the decade leading up to 1974 included the New Zealand Chancery in Washington, the Civic Offices in Rotorua and the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. As Sir Miles himself engagingly remembered the latter commission: "In 1975 I had a telephone call from Mayor Michael Fowler. 'Hi Miles, would you accept a commission to design our new Wellington Town Hall'. 'Most certainly,' says I, 'what's the brief'. 'The same as Christchurch but better'. 'How long have we got to prepare the sketch plans?' 'Six weeks'. Apart from attendant jollities that was about it."

In 1976 Sir Miles purchased a house at the head of Lyttelton Harbour in partnership with his sister Pauline and her husband John Trengrove for the purpose of creating a large garden together. The house and grounds at Ōhinetahi became a lifelong passion for the keen gardener and remains one of New Zealand's best formal gardens.

Warren and Mahoney became a multi-textual practice during the building boom of the 1980s, producing a series of design-led office blocks as well as commissions such as Whanganui Collegiate auditorium, St Patrick's Church in Napier and the Rotorua Civic Centre. The Television New Zealand Network Centre in Auckland was described by Sir Miles as "technically the most complex brief undertaken by the partnership" and marked the end of the excesses of the eighties.

After establishing the F M Warren Scholarship in Art History at the University of Canterbury in 1994, Sir Miles retired in 1995 but remained active as an advocate for architectural education and a patron of the arts. The Warren Trust was established in 2006 and over the last decade has given generously to promote architectural education to both the architectural profession and the wider public in New Zealand. The trust sponsors the Institute’s annual architecture writing awards. In 2012 Sir Miles gifted Ōhinetahi as an endowment to the Ōhinetahi Charitable Trust to ensure it remained open to the public in perpetuity.

Offices and awards

Sir Miles is a Past President of the Canterbury Branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects, was a Member of the Council of the Institute, and Chairman of the Education and Registration Authority. Sir Miles was made a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects in 1965, awarded the NZIA Award of Honour in 1987 and the NZIA Gold Medal in 2000. Warren & Mahoney won NZIA Gold Medals (now New Zealand Architecture Awards) in 1959, 1964, 1969 and 1973.

Other awards and distinctions

Sir Miles was made a CBE in 1974, knighted in 1985 and was awarded the Order of New Zealand in 1995. In 2001 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Auckland, and in 2003 he received an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. He was an active Member of a number of other professional and artistic organisations, including the Canterbury Society of Arts and the Theatre Royal Christchurch Charitable Management Committee. 



NZIA, 10 August 2022
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